


Ease Your Troubled Soul, Warm Your Weary Bones

by keeprunning



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance
Genre: M/M, Marijuana, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-31
Updated: 2015-12-31
Packaged: 2018-05-10 14:43:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5590177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keeprunning/pseuds/keeprunning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Pete comes out to his best friend Mikey at fourteen, he makes a promise not to fall in love with him.</p>
<p>At eighteen, he breaks it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ease Your Troubled Soul, Warm Your Weary Bones

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> Happy Petekey Christmas sweetie! I couldn't wrap my head around Kobra Kid, but I hope you find this cliche, cheesy high school party pic enough to put a smile on your face. :)
> 
>  
> 
> Title stolen from Take My Blanket and Go by Joe Purdy

Pete Wentz is fourteen and _not crying_. It’s just that he’s a little terrified, and sort of panicky, and so some water is leaking out of his eyes. But he’s for sure not crying, okay?

Pete scrapes roughly at his eyes while he waits for the mini-van to turn, and then he’s shooting across the suburban street. Mikey Way’s house is fifteen minutes away walking, ten if Pete is upset or excited. His feet move fast, and he keeps getting scared by this rough, kind-of hysterical noise that he knows, on some level, is coming from him. He tries not to think about that, too much.

Rounding the corner feels the same way breaking the surface does when you’ve dived a little to deep and you’re starting to panic about your oxygen level. The Way’s house is nothing special, real-estate wise, but in Pete’s eyes the place is a fucking Cathedral. He bounds up the slightly-cracked steps to salvation and all but falls onto the buzzer.

Mikey answers, all angles and glasses and hair.

“I told my mom I’m gay and she freaked the fuck out, and now I’m freaking the fuck out,” Pete says in a rush. Mikey blinks at him, and Pete realizes that this is also the first time he’s told _Mikey_ he’s gay. The first time he’s told anyone, actually, if you don’t count his dog, and occasionally his reflection in the mirror. Pete doesn’t like, think Mikey is a bigot or anything, but he thinks he can kind of understand a retroactive freakout re: three years of sleepovers in the same bed, sharing underwear, seeing each other naked and - only _once_ , and totally innocently - pulling their pants down together, just for comparison’s sake. 

Pete is powering up to full panic mode when Mikey says, “Me too.”

“You’re… freaking out, too?” Pete’s forehead wrinkles.

Mikey gives him the kind of smile that always feels hard-won. “I’m _not_. Because I’m gay, too. So it’s, you know. Pretty okay with me if you are, too. But we can never fall for each other, okay? _So_ cliche.” He shudders dramatically.

“It’s so done,” says Mikey’s older brother Gerard, who has appeared at the door, too, in that eery, too-quiet way of his. “I would not come to your wedding, you know?”

Something shifts uncomfortably in Pete’s stomach, but he looks back at two people that love him, that are accepting him for who is. He finds himself grinning back. “Scouts honour, I promise. Your virtue is safe, Mikeyway.”

Mikey and Pete shake, like it’s an accord, and then they’re hugging. Pete comes in and they spend the rest of the day watching slasher movies and drinking liquor Donna acts like she doesn’t know they’ve stolen. 

Pete is, he thinks, gay in the dick-liking way, but also very much in the old-timey, happy way.

***

Pete is eighteen years old, at a party in Mikey’s basement that is really just a bunch of dudes drinking and marathoning Star Wars, Machete Order. His shirt is definitely too small, but his skin is getting that way, too, like too little material stretched over too many bones, and that’s a metaphor for something if Pete’s ever heard one. He’s just not sure for what, quite yet. He wishes desperately he could take a deep swig of beer, just for something to do, but he’s drank the whole bottle already. Frank has just made a joke at his expense- just a friendly jab, as teenagers do - but Pete can’t make himself laugh back. He bites his lip, and looks at his lap instead of the weird looks he’s getting. He find himself trying to _think_ Mikey back faster, and musing that on his long list of Very Bad Days, today is nearing the top.

The others - Frank, Gee, Ray, Bob - have moved on, but Pete’s still fidgeting anxiously when Mikey appears like an answered prayer. An answered prayer that plops unceremoniously on top of Pete and pinches the exposed skin between his t-shirt and belt, but an answered prayer all the same.

“Peter,” he says in his Business Man voice that he lifted straight from _Meet Joe Black_ , like he’s in a board meeting and not his best friend’s lap.

“Micheal,” Pete booms, just as seriously, and clasps his shoulder in a very manly-man way. It melts almost instantly into more of a caress, until Pete’s got both his arms around Mikey, because Pete is _not_ a manly-man. He’s also kind of a fucking pervert, because Mikey being a very tactile person means that Pete gets away with more kissing and petting than he really should. Those touches mean something very different to Pete than they do to Mikey, but Pete’s not a martyr. He’s, in fact, a boy with very little self-control and little to no sense of shame.

Mikey, totally oblivious, presses their cheeks together. “Did you miss me? Mom wanted to talk. Told her she should just come down, but she said she hates the Ewoks.” 

Pete misses Mikey when he’s sitting next to him, sometimes, but what he does is roll his eyes and push Mikey’s face off of his. “Everyone hates the Ewoks. It’s fucking weird that you like them, man,” he grouses, but it sounds like it’s lacking feeling, even to him. 

“Well, whatever,” Mikey says, in a calculating tone that worries Pete and waggles a bottle - Vodka, big enough to be a proper noun - in front of Pete’s face. “I got you this. It’ll help,”

“With my wounds that you’re going to sterilize using vodka like a bank robber in the 50s?”

Mikey’s eyes narrow even further. “With whatever fucking happened to you in the ten minutes I was upstairs,” he says, maddeningly matter-of-factly.

Pete thinks about asking what he means, or how he knows, but Mikey _always_ knows. He knows more than he lets on, usually, about most things, but especially about Pete. Mikey knows so much, most of which Pete hasn’t even said - how his parents fight; how he sometimes wishes he was dead but like, not on a permanent timeline; how he has notebooks of lyrics won’t sing, maybe ever. It seems like Mikey knows all of his secrets except the biggest, worst one - that he broke his promise from when they were fourteen. Pete can’t pinpoint exactly when it happened, but somewhere along the way Pete fell in love with Mikey. And it never was a big deal, it was just _there_. Pete went to school, worked at the pizza place with Patrick, and was in love with Mikey. Except lately, it’s all he can think about. It’ s like a bass line, constantly beating against the back of his brain and dictating his movements. And then today, with what Frank said -

He forces his eyes to focus. Mikey is looking at him, and he can see Gee watching the two of them and pretending he isn’t. 

Pete grabs the bottle and takes a deep drink.

***

“Drink every time Luke looks at Leia weird,” Pete declares.

“That’s subjective,” someone complains.

“Drink twice every time it’s subjective,” someone else - Frank - suggests, and Pete thinks that is a very, very good idea.

***

They trade vodka for rum. Because - Pete thinks? - they drink all the vodka. It’s hard to say for sure. It’s hard to say anything, right now. He feels very warm. The basement couch is like, way comfier than he remembers it being. He tries to tell Mikey, but Mikey just sits besides him and tugs the too-long hair at his neck, and says something about about he needs a hair cut. He does.

Mikey’s fingers feel nice in his hair.

***

The lights are off, and Pete is in - the bathroom? The bathtub. Empty, of course. It’s him and Gerard, passing a joint back and forth and both feeling very subversive. There’s a reason for this, according to Gerard - something about the ventilation system and not getting busted by Donna - but Pete kinda likes the feel of it anyway.

“Mikey’s waiting for you, you know” Gerard says conversationally, even though Pete’s pretty sure they’ve been smoking in near silence.

“Where?” Mikey’s not in the bathroom. Pete doesn’t remember him telling Pete to meet him anywhere.

Gerard rolls his eyes.

***

“We are going to fucking _die_ , Mikeyway,” Pete says, and he kind of knows he’s yelling, but he can’t quite remember how to speak softer. He also can’t make himself care, too much.

“Pancakes on the pavement,” Mikey agrees, smirking, which is like an all-out grin, for him.

“Song title!” Pete exclaims.

“Band name,” Mikey counters, then holds out his hand. “Now stop being a bitch and get out here.”

“Not very sweet, little dude,” Pete complains, but he takes his hand, anyway. He crawls through the window of Helena’s room after Mikey. The roof is angled sharp towards the ground here - presumably by design, to discourage such hijinks - but if you make it up to the left, it levels out enough to lay on. Pete stumbles a bit, but Mikey’s grip on him is steady, and they scale the shingling together.

“Bet you take all the boys here,” Pete says when they’re safe, just for something to say.

Mikey gives him a look of unfiltered disgust, but still pats the spot beside himself when he sits down. Pete sits and starts rummaging through his pockets for cigarettes as Mikey says, “Gee brought me up here - as you know, you fucking dick. And the only person _I’ve_ brought up here is you.”

He punctuates his point by pulling Pete to him until they’re both flat on their backs, staring at the stars. Or, where Pete guesses the stars would be, if all the fucking 7-11s and In-N-Out’s didn’t choke them out with ugly neon. The moon is high and bright, though - for some reason, the light pollution never seems to touch the moon. Pete likes that. He sticks the cigarette into his mouth and holds it resolutely there until Mikey sighs, and reaches over to light it for him. Mikey doesn’t roll back over. He just _stays_ , on his side with one hand propping up his head and the other one, the one with the lighter, resting on Pete’s stomach. Pete concentrates on the feeling of Mikey’s hand moving with his stomach as he exhales, and then gently eases the cigarette into Mikey’s mouth. Mikey looks kind of like a painting up here. Half of his face is orange in the street lamps, and the other is shaded and blue. The blue half looks fragile, like the paper birthday streamers are made out of. He juts his lower lip, breathing out smoke, and Pete takes the cigarette back.

“So,” Mikey says, like it’s a complete sentence.

“So what?”

“C’mon, Pete. Don’t act like you aren’t drunk enough to tell me what upset you earlier.”

Pete sighs, and stamps out the cigarette beside him, even though that feels like kind of a rude thing to do on someone’s roof. “It’s dumb,” he says.

“Pete - _nothing_ you think is dumb,” Mikey says, barely a whisper and Pete know’s he’s fucked, right there. It’s everything he drank, and the tone that is so _not_ cajoling that it just _is_ , and the fact that Pete is just _tired_. It’s a big fucking secret to be walking around with, and his shoulder’s are just _sore_.

So, he goes for it.

“Okay. So, when you went upstairs, everyone was giving Frank and Gee shit, right? And of course, Frankie decides to throw someone else under the bus with him, because of who he is as a fucking person, and he said something about how you were my… That we were like, together.”

Pete can feel his heart fucking convulsing - even stronger in juxtaposition because Mikey is suddenly, shockingly still. Pete instantly regrets everything - drinking, opening his mouth, fucking _breathing._

“And the idea of that was so awful that you had to get fucking _shitfaced_ to deal with it?” Mikey’s tone is acerbic and jarring to Pete’s sluggish brain. He notices, in the same way that you realize you didn’t do the last page after handing in an exam, that Mikey’s hand has moved from Pete’s stomach back to his own chest, where it’s curled protectively. Pete wishes for the contact back, desperately.

He looks up at Mikey and - oh fuck, Mikey is _pissed_. Mikey is stoic and stone faced as a rule, but when you’ve been around him in the sheer volume Pete has, you get to learn his tells. Which Pete fucking does, like the lyrics of his favourite songs. Mikey’s eyes are flinty and he’s chewing on the inside of his lip, which means that 1) he’s _really_ mad and, 2) Pete is very fucking confused about what is going on here.

“What? Mikey, no. _No_ , okay? The idea was not… awful, okay, Mikey? It was… Too good. Fuck,” Pete curses. He can’t even look. He closes his eyes tight and says a very convoluted to prayer, which amounts to trading God a lifetime of belief and faithfulness if he will just cause Mikey’s roof to collapse around him right now.

“What do you mean, ‘too good?’” Mikey says, with that way he has of pronouncing punctuation so clearly you can practically see it floating around beside his head.

Pete makes himself sit up and look at Mikey, who looks as terrified as Pete feels.

“I mean that I’m a fucking terrible best friend who broke my promise and fell in love with you. And I’m really fucking sorry, Mikey, but I am. I’m in lo-“

The rest of Pete’s confession gets lost to Mikey’s tongue, which Mikey shoves unceremoniously into his mouth when Mikey crashes their lips together. It’s - well, honestly, it’s a fucking mess. They’re drunk, and at an angle and Christ, it’s not like either of them have this exhaustive list of credentials when it comes to kissing. But it’s _Mikey_ kissing _Pete_ , so it’s the best thing that’s happened to the world, thus far. That’s including Metallica.

Pete is too busy marvelling to kiss back and so, much too soon, Mikey is pulling away and wearing looking back and forth between Pete’s eyes. “Is this you freaking out because this is really good, or you freaking out because I totally misunderstood what you were saying?” he asks, and the fact that Mikey know’s that that’s an appropriate way to frame questions to Pete makes Pete want to kiss him all the more - which he can, apparently, because this is what they’re doing now.

“I just - _You_ like _me_?” Pete asks.

“I thought you knew,” Mikey says, having the decency to look a little chagrined. 

“You made me promise not to like you, Mikey!”

“We were fucking _fourteen,_ Pete!”

“Oh, for fucks-“ Pete says, and for want of a better idea, he wraps his hands around Mikey’s face and kisses him, hard. He can’t imagine a better idea ever, to be honest.

He finally pulls away (for air, okay, because he’s not an expert at this, not yet) and looks down at Mikey, who has somehow ended up below him. Pete grins, and he knows he’s doing it extra, but the banana moon is lighting Mikey’s face like a strobe that doesn’t blink, and Pete feels a little bit like he’s on some weird, psychedelic trip, and - besides - Mikey’s doing it, too. Mikey - Pete’s friend and saviour, who walked into Pete’s adolescent life like an actor to his mark; who picked up Pete’s convoluted communication style like a Ninetnedo controller in his bother’s bedroom; who drinks Diet Coke for the taste and knows that it’s _Frankenstien’s Monster_ not just _Frankstein._ Pete smiles big enough to crack his face wide open, and then, because it’s a little embarrassing, leans down and kisses Mikey soft and sweet. The kiss tastes like rum and tobacco and Pete might cry, it’s so good.

“I fucking _hate_ you,” he says, very fondly.

“The kissing is making me think otherwise,” Mikey smirks.

“Oh - Oh no, it’s _hate_ kissing. I’m like… I’m fighting you, with my mouth. Come here, Mikeyway. Fight with me more,” he says, and kisses Mikey again.


End file.
